The All-Time Creepiest Unsolved Mysteries
Reddit user BubblegumCrocodile asked: 'What’s the creepiest unsolved mystery?'
Humans are inquisitive creatures. We love a good mystery whether it's pure fiction or true crime.
Just check book sale statistics and TV and streaming ratings.
But humans also crave closure which can be why unsolved mysteries capture our attention.
Reddit user BubblegumCrocodile asked:
"What’s the creepiest unsolved mystery?"
Teteteke Gqontsi
"There was a man named Teteteke Gqontsi who was at the Stellenbosch Hospital in the town of Stellenbosch, South Africa for abdominal surgery, so he could barely move."
"One day a nurse came in to change the linens and when she came back inside from being right outside his room he had disappeared."
"He wasn't anywhere in the room. The hospital searched for a week until some men had to perform maintenance on the ceiling, when they opened the ceiling up, there found Teteteke inside the ceiling in the fetal position and he was deceased."
"The autopsy showed that his death wasn't of natural causes and someone put him in the ceiling."
"A few months later, a man named Sandile Sibaya was admitted to a different hospital to have his broken femur treated."
"After a few days there he was about to be transferred to a different hospital to see an orthopedist, but when they went to get him, he was gone."
"They looked for him and only found him when a bad smell permeated the hospital, so the staff opened up the ceiling and found Sandile dead in the exact same position as Teteteke, and they said Sandile also didn't die a natural death and was placed in the ceiling by something."
"I think that's creepy."
~ ResponsibleTaro1759
Baby Crystal
"On Thursday, December 12, 1985, a toddler was spotted wandering unaccompanied around a Kmart department store in Spanaway, Washington with no parent or guardian in sight."
"When authorities tried to coax information out of her to help locate her parents, the only piece of information she was able to give was, 'Mommy is in the trees'."
"A photo was placed in the local newspaper, and the toddler was soon recognised as Crystal by her maternal grandmother Louise Conrad, who took her into her care, later saying that Crystal appeared shaken and disturbed, perhaps by something she had seen."
"So where was mommy?"
"About two months later, the body of Diana Robertson, Crystal's mommy, was discovered deep in the forest around Elbe, Washington with 17 stab wounds and a tube sock tied around her neck."
"Nearby an abandoned 1982 Plymouth pickup truck was discovered covered in blood stains, and with a handwritten note on the dashboard simply saying 'I love you, Diana'."
"This truck belonged to her partner, Mike Riemer, a outdoorsman and trapper, who often spent time in these woods. Mike, however, was nowhere to be found."
"Initially, the police believed him to be responsible for Diana's murder; just two months prior, on October 19, 1985, Mike had been arrested and cited for domestic assault and malicious damage after allegedly kicking in a door at her apartment, throwing her to the floor, and rubbing her face in the carpet."
"They also connected her murder to a double murder that had occurred in the same woods four months earlier."
"A man named Stephen Harkins was found shot to death in his sleeping bag, while his companion, Ruth Cooper, was found strangled two months later."
"Both had a tube sock tied around their neck."
"So was Mike a serial killer? He had apparently been in the woods at the very time that Harkins and Cooper were murdered, and certainly knew how to navigate the tricky terrain."
"But with no trace of him, there was no way to tell for certain."
"Over 20 years later, on March 26, 2011, a hiker discovered a partial human skull in the woods off of State Route 7 in Lewis County near Mineral, Washington, about a mile from where Diana's body had been found. Subsequent analysis revealed that it was indeed Mike, and that he was a likely homicide victim himself."
"So four murders in the same woods by an unknown assailant."
"The question remains: how did Crystal find herself wandering around the Kmart over 30 miles away? She must have been driven there and dropped off, presumably by the serial killer. Crystal must have spent a silent 45-minute drive in the car with the very person who killed her mother, with no memory of the event."
~ UppruniTegundanna
Turn the Page
"Went to a good-sized college party with several friends. The location for the party was out in the woods in the middle of nowhere."
"The road leading to the party was fairly straight with one major feature. The road was flat for the entire length, but it had a hill that was 30ish feet tall halfway down it. A pretty good bump in the road, you might say."
"I was driving, and when I slowly topped the hill, I met a car heading in the opposite direction. That car slowed down to a stop. It was several of my friends temporarily leaving the party to make a beer run to the store."
"They knew who I was by my vehicle and flagged me down to ask if I needed anything from town, and we proceeded to chat for a minute about how the party was unfolding they left."
"When we both backed up to talk, we just happened to stop on top of the hill. Mind you, this was not a busy road and located, as we say, out in the sticks."
"As we were parked talking for a brief minute, we all noticed there was a song coming from the surrounding woods. We figured it was someone having a private party in a parked car nearby in the woods if you get my drift."
"The odd thing was it was 'Turn the Page' by Bob Seagar, but it was on repeat."
"We all went on to meet back up and attend the party and thought nothing more of our chat on the hill."
"A few days later, I got a visit from several police officers about an investigation. They learned there was a party that night down the road with the hill in question."
"They were tracking down all attendees. That is how they found me. A hunter the day after the party found something at the base of the hill off the road."
"Someone driving another car that night heading in the same direction down the road I was on had wrecked their vehicle. The driver took the hill at insane speed and killed themselves in a wreck that had ran way way off the road."
"Unsolved mystery that is still ongoing. The police said that they believed the driver they found was not the driver. There were 2 people in the car who wrecked."
"They found 1 set of bloody foot prints that led to the top of the hill. It looked like someone moved the body behind the steering wheel and fled on foot. They found extra sets of bloody hand prints in the car."
"The wild thing was that they found a cd with Bob Segar 'Turn the Page' in the cd player."
"Everyone that was on top of the hill that night volunteered to give fingerprints."
"Every so often, every few years, one of us gets a phone call to ask us to recount what we saw that night on top of that hill."
~ ApprehensiveVirus125
Kyron Horman
"Kyron Horman."
"Stepmom took him to school, walked around the 'Science Fair' in the gym then he went to class... has not been seen since."
"He was IN the school. C'mon now. It's been over a decade now. I have a 'Google Alert' on his name for updates."
~ sluggernate
Alonzo Brooks
"Alonzo Brooks."
"Not necessarily creepy in the traditional sense, though it has a long history and is literally close to home."
"The reboot of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ featured an episode about his disappearance. Because of it—after his death initially being ruled undetermined—he was exhumed and changed cause of death to murder."
"Which was always pretty obvious."
"He went to a party in a small Kansas town, LaCygne, with a few friends. Alonzo had some words with partygoers. His friends bailed. Alonzo doesn’t come home."
"The next day, his shoes are found down the road, separately. Police search the area, including along a creek near the party house—nothing."
"A few weeks later, the police let the family do a search—after not letting them be involved earlier. His body is almost immediately found along that same creek."
"Of note, though, is that his body didn’t show any signs of deterioration or decomposition that would be expected of having been there for weeks."
"It’s presumed he was in a fight at the party, dragged down the road, and possibly inadvertently killed in a shed near the party house (that was torn down shortly after)."
"The (other) f**ked up part is that it’s suggested his body was kept in a meat locker and covered up by the cops, and when the family tried to get more involved in the search, his body was dumped along the creek, thereby explaining the lack of decomposition."
"The party had some 100 people there. Someone knows something and no one is saying anything."
~ TommyRockbottom
Frauke Liebs
"Frauke Liebs."
"Was last seen leaving a bar to go home, then at some point during her walk home, went missing."
"She was able to make several texts and calls to loved ones over the next few days, but was very vague and refused to give information on her whereabouts."
"The details of her last phone call, to her sister, are pretty chilling. During this conversation, she is said to have answered the question of whether she was being held captive with a faint 'yes', immediately followed by a loud 'no'. Contact broke off after this phone call."
"Her body was found several months later in a wooded area, most likely dumped from somewhere else. No further details were found about the killer, motive for her death or disappearance."
~ Anxiouslytotingababy
Austin Froyo Murders
"Maybe not the all-time creepiest but certainly in the top 20 and also one of the saddest is the one of who murdered those four girls in that frozen yogurt shop in Austin, Texas back in November of 1991."
"Several teen guys were arrested, tried and convicted then later had the convictions overturned."
"Also, the DNA on one of the victims didn't match up with any of these guys."
"In addition, a married couple who left the shop shortly before closing time noted a pair of older and rather sinister looking guys sitting in a booth next to the counter as they left."
~ NoodlesrTuff1256
Andrew Gosden
"What happened to 14-year-old Andrew Gosden."
"He got a train to King’s Cross, London by himself and hasn’t been seen since."
~ bluebellfob
"Disappearance of Andrew Gosden is another super weird UK one."
A 14-year-old leaves his home in Doncaster in 2007, withdraws £200 out of his bank account, buys a one-way ticket to London even though a return ticket was only £1 more, is seen on CCTV leaving King's Cross station and then is never seen again."
"There have been a few weird potential leads in the case in the 17 years since but not a single solid or confirmed lead or sighting."
~ -JensonButton-
Ursula and Sabina Eriksson
"The Eriksson twin sisters that ran across a motorway in England, were hit several times by lorries and cars, and just kept moving somehow."
"Even the backstory and aftermath get weirder the more you find out, the stranger it gets."
~ section20sniper84
"What fascinates me about this one is the leadup to it."
"Like, one day one of them is a family woman living in Ireland and the other one is going for a nice visit to her sister, and the next day they're acting weird on a bus in England and from there it all goes batsh*t nuts."
"What happened between A and B?!"
~ zaffiro_in_giro
Skye Budnick
"The Skye Budnick case. Shy, socially awkward 21-year-old college student buys a one-way ticket to Japan without telling anybody."
"She takes no phone. Just 800 dollars, a laptop and a Nintendo DS. She leaves an unfinished, unsent, unclear, note in her email drafts on a home computer."
"She was studying Japanese but failing out of school and couldn't get into her exchange program, she was not fluent. She flew to Tokyo and then to Sapporo."
"She's reported to have gotten off the plane in Sapporo and maybe checking into her hotel (?) but after that she vanished without a trace."
"This happened over a decade ago and still not one shred of evidence or leads as to what could have happened, who she could have met, what her motives were. She left her car at the airport in the United states."
"No keys were ever recovered. The laptop was never recovered, nor the DS or the cash. Her family are left wondering forever."
"Her sister has a really good podcast called 'Surviving Skye'."
~ Igotyourexcominnext
Larry Bader/John "Fritz" Johnson
"Larry Bader. Not necessarily creepy, but bizarre for sure."
"Larry Bader was married with three kids. In March 1957, he went fishing on Lake Erie by himself, even though he knew a storm was coming. The next day, they found his crashed boat, but Larry himself was nowhere to be seen."
"Almost 10 years later, in 1965, he was found by his niece doing an archery demonstration in Nebraska, when he was originally from Ohio."
When confronted, he swore he didn’t know anyone named Larry Bader, as he identified as John 'Fritz' Johnson. He claimed to have lived in Nebraska all his life, having memories as a child named Fritz."
"He also got married and had another kid."
"His niece, convinced Fritz was her uncle, requested that he go to the police and be identified. He was, in fact, Larry Bader, but he had no recollection whatsoever of his previous life."
"Bader/Johnson died in 1966, not long after being found by his niece."
~ whereisthefrog
Bryce Laspisa
"Missing person Bryce Laspisa. While away in college, he started exhibiting some troubling behavior and his parents were worried about him."
"He said he would drive home from college and that he had a lot he needed to talk about. On the way home he pulled over like 3 separate times and just sat there for hours."
"At some point about halfway home he ran out of gas and a roadside assistance employee delivered gas to him at 9 am. By noon when he still hadn't arrived home, his mom called the insurance company and was able to contact the roadside assistance employee and have him check on Bryce."
"He found Bryce in the exact same spot where he had delivered gas to him, hours earlier. He had Bryce call his mom, and Bryce said he would be home by 3pm."
"At 6pm, he is still not home and his parents report him missing. The police find Bryce just 8 miles away from where he was previously sitting. He seems fine....they leave...he still just sits there."
"Again the roadside assistance employee checks on Bryce and finds him in the same spot the cops left him hours earlier."
"Anyway, after a lot of that, when he does finally start heading home, he crashes the car off a cliff. It was found he accelerated while descending the hill, so they think he crashed on purpose."
"Police find the damaged vehicle, no Bryce, and he is never seen again."
~ sallyjosieholly
Alistair Wilson
"The murder of Alistair Wilson in Nairn, Scotland in 2004."
"A 30-year-old banker living in a quiet neighbourhood has the doorbell of his home rang. His wife answers the door and a man in a baseball cap asks for Alistair by name and so he went to speak to him."
"He returned after a few minutes to his wife with an empty blue envelope that had 'Paul' written on it. Confused about this, he went back to his front door, at which point his wife heard three gunshots and then found him executed."
"The murder investigation was one of the biggest in the history of Scotland and to this day remains unsolved."
"In 2022 the Scottish Police announced they believe a planning dispute with a local hotel may have been a motive and then earlier this year that they believe the shooting was carried out by two people, one of them a local suspect whom was arrested on drug charges."
"However, while they now finally have a potential motive and suspect nearly 20 years later, it still has not been solved."
~ -JensonButton-
Sukumara Kurup
"Sukumara Kurup. Time period: mid 80s. This guy visits his hometown, a sleepy village in Kerala, India with wife and son, from Dubai."
"He goes out drinking with some buddies and on the way back picks up a random stranger and kills him. Burns the car they drove in with the body in it.
"Making it look like an accident. People think it’s Kurup’s body in the car until police investigated and find that it’s not Kurup. His buddies are caught but he’s missing."
"Police suspect he tried to fake his death to get insurance money of about 10,000 USD which is a pretty big amount back then. The man they murdered was supposed to be the body to fool the insurance agents to make the claim."
"Been decades now and he’s still missing. He’s currently one of the most wanted criminals in India who still hasn’t been caught."
"Growing up we heard stories of him being spotted all over the country. Recently they made a movie on him as well."
~ astro_not_yet
There are a lot of interesting cases here.
What unsolved mystery would you add to the list?
Unsettling Unsolved Mysteries
Reddit user Shafiq09 asked: 'what is the most unsettling unsolved mystery that you're aware of?
There are some great mysteries in this world that will most likely never be solved in our lifetime.
What happens after we die? Who really built Stonehenge? Are there other lifeforms in outer space?
The fact that these not only will, but as of now, CAN never be solved is what fascinates us most.
There are other unsolved mysteries, however, which we view with far more sadness than we do fascination.
Owing to the fact that these mysteries could have, or even still can, be solved but for whatever reason, remain unsolved.
Redditor Shafiq09 was curious to hear the most disturbing and unsettling unsolved mysteries that may never be solved, leading them to ask:
"What is the most unsettling unsolved mystery that you're aware of?"
Missing Accomplice
"This guy broke into a house, killed the single mom, mom's friend, the son, the family dog, and kidnapped the teenage daughter."
"Dismembered the bodies and hid them."
"The girl didn't need to testify in his trial (he pled guilty), but read a letter during his sentencing saying that she knows he had help disposing of the bodies of her family because while she was still tied up in their house, she heard him making phone calls and heard at least one other person show up."
"She heard this person(s) talking, walking around and helping him with the bodies."
"Local pd & prosectutor just wanted a quick & easy trial and conviction, so they swept a lot of details under the rug & the girl's claim in court that this guy had help was very quickly forgotten."- ZormkidFrobozz
9 Mysterious Years...
"The disappearance (and short-lived reappearance) of Johnny Gosch."
"He disappeared one day while delivering newspapers."
"Police did very little to try to solve the crime."
"Nine years later his mother reports that Johnny showed up on her doorstep and explains that he had been held in slavery for the last 9 years."
"Authorities basically say she's making it up and have done no investigating."- in-a-microbus
Gross
"Someone keep sh*tting in the holes at the local golf course."
"Been going on for the last twenty years bastard has never been caught."- Odd_Associate8272
Never Came Home
"Old neighbours of ours had their 18-year-old daughter disappear."
"She left work one evening and never made it home."
"No body was ever found either."
"I heard the police have a suspect but not enough evidence to do anything more."- AmigaBob
Long Day At The Beach
"The Beamont children, three young siblings that disappeared in 1966 from Glenelg Beach."- homlessoverland
In The Middle Of The Night...
"Another one is of the Springfield three."
"A woman, her daughter and daughter's friend went missing from their home in the middle of the night with no signs of struggle or major evidence left behind."
"It's been so long since it happened so the chances of this case ever being solved is meager."- epilogueteen
So many Questions...
"One night my husband and I woke up hearing a woman screaming, 'Help me!' "
"He rushed to the window (we’re on the second floor) and saw a car drive past with a woman in a dress hanging on the hood."
"The car sped through the intersection by our place and careened off with her screaming on it."
"We called the police and told them which way it was going and then jumped on our bicycles and rode around the neighborhood to see if she’d fallen off."
"Never found her."
"Never found any news of her."
"I’ve always wondered what happened to her."
"That was over a decade ago."- 2manybirds23
Mysteries of Biology...
"At what point did the brain realize its own consciousness?"
"I find it fascinating."- KinOuttaHer
Paying For Religious Freedom...
"How Scientology still has tax-free status in the USA."- sqoo-5900
And, For That Matter, What Made Them Start?
"Why did the Zodiac Killer and Jack the Ripper stop killing?"
"They were never caught. They could have kept at it."
"So what made them stop?"- AggressiveOkra
Twinkle Twinkle
"I can't remember exactly what star it was, but there was a star deep in space that astrophysicists saw as relatively unremarkable."
"Just another star they were monitoring."
"Anyway, one day, all was normal, it was in the correct position."
"The next day, they were monitoring all the stars, and this one star had just disappeared."
"Poof."
"No one could figure out why. It could have been that it went supernova, but if it had, they would have seen the residue and the massive explosion, plus all the gaseous residue."
"So it can't have gone bang."
"They also hypothesized that maybe a civilisation had constructed a Dyson sphere (a large construction made to harvest all of a stars potential energy), but if so, it would have been more than likely that we would have seen the star slowly disappear, the light fading as the civilization constructed the Dyson sphere."
"Now, of course, according to the Kardashev scale, there could well be a civilization so advanced that they could have just constructed the entire sphere in a matter of seconds, but we'll never know."
"On that subject, that same civilization could have just absorbed the star instantly to use its power."
"They thought that maybe, other extrasolar objects were just blocking its view somehow, so they continued to monitor its location."
"It never came back."
"Somewhere, out there, a star just miraculously disappeared without a trace."
"And we will never know how or why."
"That's what's so disturbing to me."
"We have such amazing technology to monitor objects millions of light years away, yet we cannot figure out why a star just disappeared without a trace."
"And we may never know."- TheoCross3
No Justice For Their Families
"I have three I'm very invested in."
"One, who murdered Joseph Zarelli (aka the Philadelphia boy formerly known as the 'Boy in the Box')."
"Two, what happened to missing Oklahoma teenagers Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible and who murdered the rest of the Freeman family."
"And three, who murdered the Short family of Henry County, Virginia."- arcana07
The truth behind these mysteries is out there somewhere.
Whether anyone will find it, however, is also a mystery that may never be solved.
From Sherlock Holmes to Olivia Benson, detectives have continued to hold a special place in the zeitgeist of popular culture.
And with the increased popularity of true crime documentaries and podcasts, many real-life detectives have become as or more popular than those from the world of literature, film and television.
Of course, real-life detectives rarely, if ever, handle cases of the magnitude of those we read about in our favorite mystery novels, or watch in our favorite films and TV shows.
And those whose cases become the source of a true crime documentary and podcast are among the rare variety interesting enough to merit that distinction.
Or are they?
Indeed, all detectives seem to find themself assigned to a case that, though it might not be a good source of inspiration for a novel or tv show, will certainly hold a special place in their memories.
"Detectives of Reddit, what was the strangest case you’ve ever investigated?"
Did NO One Notice Earlier?!?!
"All right, detective now but this happened when I was on patrol several years ago."
"Got a call to check the welfare of a guy whose neighbor hadn't seen him in a couple years."
"Why it took so long to report."
"But it was out in a rural area."
"Anyway, we roll up and the windows are black with mould and flies."
"Car is parked in the garage."
"No signs of forced entry."
"Breach the door and find said guy wrapped up in a phone cord beside a toppled chair in his dining room."
"He was mummified/melting into the carpet."
"Barely recognizable as a human aside from his shape and clothes."
"The smell of him mingled with the inches of stagnant water in his basement from burst pipes and all the dead flies and mould."
"I'll never forget it."
"We also found two bags of groceries neatly packed on the floor in his kitchen."
"House was very tidy as well."
"No witnesses."
"Estranged from his family."
"Clearly had a cat but we never found its remains."
"Medical record indicated he had a heart condition."
"My theory is he was having a heart attack and tried to call 911 but never got to make the call."
"Perhaps the creepiest part?'
"His mailbox was overflowing with past due bills and cancelled utility notices."
"The last one was a couple months old."
'And it STILL too someone that long to call."- Scorface
Truly Disgusting Breach of Protocol
"An internal affairs case at a prison I used to work at."
"Though I wasn't with the Internal Affairs Bureau or the State's Investigator's Office, holy sh*t this was a fiasco."
"In the segregation unit of the prison, there was a very eccentric sergeant who worked out constantly and liked to sit in front of cells and talk to the inmates about life for hours on end."
"He routinely went to the gym with one of the nurses who gave inmates their nightly medications."
"One evening, one of the inmates is escorted out for his insulin shot."
"The inmate makes an offhand comment to the nurse, 'you going to Gold's Gym in Anytown after work?'"
"The escorting officer reports it, as personal information of that nature is a security risk."
"The sergeant is instantly put into speculation and the nurse reports that they are gym partners."
"There are anonymous reports that he is having unscheduled, personal conversations with inmates in the cell house."
"People will not go near him."
"'F*ck no, you wanna tell the child predators what school my kids go to while you're at it?'"
"A few weeks later, there's an allegation that the nurse was having an affair with the exact inmate who made the gym comment."
"But so far unfounded, so they ensure that none of the three people are in the same part of the prison while they investigate further."
"They need to rule out that this also isn't some form of retaliation on the sergeant's behalf."
"During the investigation, an oddity is discovered."
'The inmate lived several hours away, but was receiving Western Union money orders to his account from a relatively close gas station."
"They acquire surveillance footage."
"Sure enough, it's the nurse."
"She's been putting money on the inmate's books for several months under a false identity."
"During the routine pill line for general population, the nurse will be locked in a small, secure room with a pass-through for medications."
"It was revealed that she would hide in the corner and masturbate and expose herself when he came to the door."
'He intentionally violated prison directives to be sent to segregation because she told him of an upcoming change in the nursing rotation."
"They set the sergeant up as a red herring."
"She eventually resigned, and I'm unsure what legal action was taken."
"The inmate was moved to a different facility."- marvelousteat
Old School Computer Crimes
"I was not the detective, but I assisted as the person who knew the most about technology."
"Back in the 1990s when RAM sticks were about $50-75 per MB, somebody broke/snuck into a computer lab, opened up a dozen computers, and replaced each computer's 4 4MB RAM sticks with 4 1MB sticks."
"Nobody noticed."
"The time frame for the crime was 'sometime between September 1st and January 10th'."
"No video, no door key-cards, No suspects."- hymie0
season 10 gun GIFGiphyCreepy, And Sloppy, Cover Up
"Not a detective but something did happen in my apartment society."
"It's a gated society with 5 buildings, and one morning there was a huge crowd in front of one of the buildings."
"Turns out that a woman had jumped from the fifth floor into the elevator lobby area around 3 in the morning or so."
"One of my friends dad was first on the scene as he said that he heard a loud boom sound around that time and went to check it out."
"Here's where things get shady."
"The woman was living with her husband and MIL, and when people went to ask the MIL whether she could confirm that it was her son's wife she looked over the edge of the fifth floor at the body below and said, 'Oh yes, that's her'."
"In a completely neutral tone."
"Local PD got suspicious and checked the lobby cameras for any clues."
"It turned out that the husband had tried to strangle her (rope marks on the neck), and then took her to the NINTH floor and dropped her."
"The piece-de-resistance?"
"The camera showed her slippers dropping a whole 5 minutes after her body hit the ground."
"The husband threw her off and skipped town, and a background check revealed that this was his second marriage and there were rumors that he and his mother burned his first wife alive."
"For a solid month or so, I had to escort residents to their homes because people in that building were terrified of what could happen."- Ultraleo1
Leave It To The Professionals
"Not a detective but I contacted my detective to run the incident by him.'
"I was a Field Training Officer training a new Deputy for my department."
"We received a call about a lady who was stranded at a gas station (essentially a check well being call)."
"My trainee and I responded to the gas station and made contact with the lady."
"She stated she was staying at a hotel nearby and did not need any assistance."
"My trainee spoke with her more and she mentioned the government was after her and kind of went off into a weird conversation that didn’t make a whole lot of since."
"On her car she had a bunch of missing posters/flyers of a man that went 'missing' from California the state."
"I asked about the missing man and she told me it was her husband and he went missing years ago and she was 'on a mission to find him'.”
"She mentioned she found body parts in her home in California and my trainee asked if that had been investigated, which she stated it had been by a local department."
"Out of curiosity I asked her what kind of body parts she found in her home and she stated human toes."
"That sparked my interest and I asked her where are they now."
"The woman looks me in the eye and states 'they are in my purse would you like to see them?'”
"In complete shock I tell her of course and I’m thinking to myself there is no way this woman has human body parts in her purse."
"Surely enough we walked over to her car, she reaches in and grabs a medicine bottle filled with formaldehyde."
"Inside the bottle of formaldehyde are 3 human toes (big toe, and two smaller toes)."
" I asked her where she got the toes and she said she found them in her house In California."
"She advised she had no idea who’s toes they were."
"It should be noted the bottle of formaldehyde had medical tape around the cap indicating it was sealed."
"Long story short I made contact with my investigator and we determined it was not illegal to possess human toes in the way she had them."
"Of course I’m thinking she murdered her ex and cut his toes off and kept them for some reason."
"I decided to look into it further and it was determined the 'missing' ex left her for another woman and he was fine."
"The woman’s sister stated the woman took a bunch of meds for many different issues and eventually quit taking them (hence the abnormal behavior.)"
"I never did figure out who’s toes they were and eventually sent her on her way."
"We determined they were likely removed by a medical professional in a hospital and someone decided to keep them."- DarrellTheRipper
Old Lady Reaction GIFGiphyThe Endless Problem Of Cyber Scams
"I work as forensic expert in the field of computer science for a few years."
'There were many strange cases I investigated during my career, for example:"
"A woman lost about 50 000 euros with internet scammer.'
"She was chatting with a man who was impersonating USA soldier and told her he's in love with her and need to get 1000 euro to arrive to her."
'She sent him money so he continued scamming and promised he would buy a house for them to live together so she send another 50 000 euro to him and then he disappeared."
"She was shocked and reported it to police."
'They took her phone and PC to investigate further.'
"Few years ago police took around 20 Macbooks from a small company to investigate for frauding and fake invoices.'
"Unfortunately they only took monitors since they thought every stationary Mac is iMac."
"When they returned few days later to that company there wasn't any PC's left so the investigation was discontinued."- pureavo
Small Town Shenanigans
'Not really a case but my grandad was the first and only one armed detective in our small town, in England."
"One day a bull got loose in a neighboring village and he was called to go and shoot it."
"As he went to the gun safe the ammo was there but no gun to be found."
"When he enquired as to it’s whereabouts, It turned out the police force had lent it to the amateur dramatics society that night for a play."
"How times have changed."- Low-Wrangler929
the office gun GIFGiphyDetectives will be tasked with all kinds of cases.
Some of which will haunt their memories forever.
Others that will always come in handy when they need a laugh.
There's little more frustrating than a mystery that was never solved.
The victim's family never gets closure, a killer may still be at large, and our minds continue to spin trying to figure out how something happened.
Perhaps most frustrating of all is knowing that there is an explanation for it out there somewhere.
And, there are people desperate to find it.
"You get the opportunity to find out the truth behind one unsolved case, which are you choosing?"
Missing Friend
"I wish I could find out what happened to my childhood best friend."
"She went missing ten years ago and nothing was discovered about the case since."- Weevelle
Missing Neighbor
"There was a kid that went missing right around my hometown when I was a kid."
"Couple years younger than me."
"It was on the news a bit, it kinda fizzled out and I haven't been able to find anything since."
"Still see flyers for him now and then. Kyron Horman."- KnockerFogger69
Murderer On The Loose
"For all my french redditors here, I will say the Xavier Dupont De Ligonnès case."
"The guy killed all his family and buried them under his concrete deck, before disappearing completely without leaving any traces, and it has been more than ten years."- OopsieDoopsi
Mysterious Death
"Gareth Williams, that MI6 guy who was found dead inside a padlocked suitcase."
"His death was ruled as a self-inflicted accident and then later some former KGB guy would claim the KGB killed him after failing to convert him to a double agent."- adweeeb·
Not A Simple Hit And Run...
"Two boys I went to school with were killed in a hit and run by the side of the road while walking home from a party.'
"According to some reports, only one of the boys died from being hit by a car and the other appeared to have been beaten to death."
"It's been 20 years and no one has ever confessed or offered any information about the case."- an-invisible-titan
What Is Her Brother-In-Law Hiding?
"Rebecca Reusch."- illuminalice
Top Of Everybody's List
"Zodiac killer."- tdunc1994
Unknown Assassin
"Olof Palme, PM of Sweden."- Swedish_STD
What Are They Hiding?
"Where is Shelly Miscavige?"- Bucketlist074
Tragically Confusing
"Asha Degree."
"9-year-old girl left her house in the middle of the night, while it was storming and cold, with a pre packed bag of clothes."
"She had no reason to run away, and had limited computer access."
"A truck driver said they saw her walking that same early morning on the dark next to the highway, and that she ran into the woods."
"Over a year later, her backpack was found wrapped in a plastic bag about 26 miles away, which didn’t yield any further developments."
"Why did she leave?"
"Why did she run from the trucker?"
"How did her backpack end up so far away?"
"Is she still alive?"
"Was she met with foul play?"- bookloverpink
A Step-By-Step Guide
"Alcatraz escapees."- Ceyram
Who Was That Guy?!?!
"Jennifer Kesse."
"I am not sure why, but this is the one case I haven't been able to stop thinking about for years."
"The surveillance video of the perp who parked her car drives me insane."- imalittleredhouse
They Deserve Justice
"My friends' murder."
"He was killed ten years ago over Thanksgiving weekend, and his case still remains open today."
"His family deserves to know."- ToulouseDM
Hopefully Not For Long
"I know it's very recent but the Idaho college murders."- surgeryboy7
It's tragic that these mysteries remain unsolved.
But if there is anything to be gained from this mystery, it's the fact that these poor people will never be forgotten.
As the saying goes, "you die twice, once when you take your last breath, and once when they stop saying your name."
Everyone keeps secrets from their families.
Most of the time, these are fairly trivial in the grand scheme of things, like accidentally breaking a window with a baseball but blaming it on a fallen branch, or claiming the dog ruined your mother's favorite pair of shoes when you actually wore them for a grand night out.
Some people, however, are better at keeping secrets than others, and often take these secrets with them to the grave.
In doing so, however, they still might leave behind a trail of breadcrumbs, which will leave their surviving family members with a slew of unanswered questions, which will likely remain unanswered.
Even if people will forever continue to do their best to solve what these clues actually mean.
"What's your family's unsolved mystery?"
Something Is Definitely Fishy...
"The day my father died from a car accident involving a boat trailer In the middle of nowhere out of state in 1991, my mom found a box with a Chinese medicine ball with a bell inside and a letter that said, 'I am sorry'."
"It was in our mailbox."
"She found it before she got the call that my father had died."
"The first autopsy on my father said there was a high blood alcohol content."
"My mom demanded a second autopsy, and there was no alcohol in him."
"She had seen him less than hour before he died and he hadn't been drinking that morning."
"My father was a third party candidate for state governor and published an independent newspaper talking about corrupt politicians and organizations."- neurotica_9000
Save Your Pennies...
"When my great-great-uncles house was to be torn down, they found old money hidden EVERYWHERE, even in the floor and the walls."
"Nobody knows where he had all that money from."- Imaginary_Town3642
Whatever Happened To Alice?
"In England around 1880 my 3x great grandmother received a letter from her daughter."
"She read it, threw it in the fire and said 'she’s made her bed, she’ll have to lie in it'.”
"My 2x ggmother never knew what happened to her sister Alice and later immigrated to the US."
"A couple years ago an unknown DNA relative from that branch reached out on Ancestry."
"She’s mixed race with Jamaican roots but doesn’t have clear written family records."
"I suspect that we’re connected through Alice."- EmmeryAnn
He's Out There Somewhere
"Who is my maternal grandfather?"
"The name on my mom's birth certificate is the guy my grandmother was married to at the time but military records show that he was out of the country when my mom would've been conceived."
"DNA also backs this up."
"Sadly, none of my close DNA matches will respond to me."- agreeingstorm9
Safe To Say, He Was Up To No Good
"What my great uncle got up to after he disappeared to Mexico in the early 80s."
"Great Uncle was a fairly unstable individual."
"Rough childhood, shipped off to Vietnam."
"Came back, got a wife and had a son."
"Got heavily involved with organized crime in the city my family is from."
"Became very abusive to his wife and my cousin."
"Wife takes cousin and leaves him."
"Great Uncle spends next several years chasing them."
"FBI eventually gets involved, and he just ups and disappears."
"We find out he had gone to Mexico when, 16 years later, my Grandmother gets a call from his daughter saying that he had passed away."
"The fact that he had apparently been not only alive the entire time, but had also started another family was a surprise."
"My cousin, despite everything, decided he should attend the funeral in Mexico."
"At the viewing, he tells us that two well dressed guys pull up in a Town Car, approach the casket, snap a quick picture of my deceased great uncle, and leave."
"Without having said a single word to anyone."
"We have a lot of questions."- Ok_Counter_4610
What They Don't Know, Won't Hurt Them...
"An intentionally unsolved one to make you laugh."
"When I was say 10 I hated cutting the grass, we had a brutally steep hill and it was never fun."
"Our lawn mower had gotten old and hard to start, so a brilliant kid idea came to me, sabotage!"
"Now I was no slacker here, I thought it through."
"I carefully pulled the starter cord out about halfway and frayed it so that it was just half cut."
"Then I went inside and told my Stepfather I could not start it."
'He naturally enough went outside to show me that I could and was just being lazy."
"The be fair I was but the cord lasted about three hard pulls before snapping, which led to the air turning blue from the cursing."
"This was apparently such a frustrating thing that we ended up with a brand new self-propelled, mower, a huge success."
"Fast forward 20 years and when this story was finally told by my sister it was not believed."
"He insisted that it broke because it was a pile of garbage, he was there after all! "
"I could only laugh at this."
"I think he believes to this day I could not have pulled that off."- bullwinkle8088
A Likely Story...
"What my grandfather actually did in the military."
"He said he was an accountant, that he wrote paychecks."
"But we also know for a fact he spoke Russian, was a crack shot with a rifle, to the point when I was in JROTC doing the shooting drills he warned me to miss a few times on purpose, because crack shots get made into snipers, and snipers don't live long, and we discovered after his death that 'was an accountant' is an extremely common cover story."- Edymnion
Her Own Fault For Leaving It Unattended
"Someone took a chunk out of aunt Eliza's pumpkin pie when nobody was around at our family thanksgiving back in 1994 and they still do not let the subject go to this day."
"Anyways It was me and I can never tell them."- blackmobius
Always Two Steps Ahead Of Everybody
"My Grandmother used to answer, old-school rotary, phones before they rang and there was always someone on the line."
"She would also tell us to go open the door for family and friends seconds to minutes before they were even in sight of the house."
"She was an extraordinary lady."- Poopybut58
Gone Without A Trace
"My great-grandfather was said to have up and disappeared one day."
"No signs of it beforehand, he was only 70 and still very active, was still involved in the business, and all of the extended family was living in the same area."
"Even more surprising was that in that small town where most people knew him, nobody even noticed him leave."
"My grandma still cries on his birthdays and on the anniversary of the day he disappeared."
"He was very well loved."
"This was way back in 1985, suburban India."- LiveInTheFlow
There is little more frustrating than not having closure.
Then again, there's a reason why "ignorance is bliss", leaving one to wonder if certain mysteries should remain unsolved.